The Hermitage, Amsterdam is located on the banks of the Amstel canal. This former Hospital, with its 17th century wide courtyard and two large Horse Chestnut trees, provides an impressive setting for some splendid art exhibitions.

Classic Beauties

Classic Beauties unveils the sensual enchantment of Neoclassicism. Embark on the ‘Grand Tour’ at the Hermitage Amsterdam.

Saturday 16 June 2018 is the opening day of Hermitage Amsterdam’s new exhibition, Classic Beauties. Artists, Italy and the Esthetic Ideals of the 18th Century.The show tells how artists and tourists flocked to Italy, and more especially Rome, in the second half of the eighteenth century. From all over Europe they traveled to the Eternal City in search of inspiration and to see for themselves the newly excavated classical Greco-Roman sculptures and buildings. Their experiences prompted a new and austere kind of fashionable architecture and, in the visual arts, an unprecedentedly sensual style that sent shock waves through society: a naked, superhuman beauty more daring than anything attempted by the Greeks and Romans. Neoclassicism was born.

A rich selection

To create Classic Beauties, the Hermitage Amsterdam has had exclusive access to the collection of the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. The displays are further enriched with loans from other private and public collections, including Paul and Maria’s Pavlovsk Palace in Russia and the Teylers Museum in Haarlem (The Netherlands).